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Living With Integrity with Andy Chaleff · The Trauma Therapist

0:00
Speaker 1: Welcome to the Trauma Theriver's podcast. My name is guiming
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Speaker 1: Person and I interview incredible people who share the story
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Speaker 1: of how trauma has shaped their lives. And a big
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Speaker 1: thank you for sponsoring today's episode goes to my guest
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Speaker 1: and our sponsors. So five four, three, two and one.
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Speaker 1: Our folks, welcome back to the podcast. Very excited to
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Speaker 1: have as Mike kis today. Andy Chellif Andy, welcome.
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Speaker 2: Wel thank you for having me. Great to see you.
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Speaker 1: So. Andy is an award winning author, speaker, and mentor
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Speaker 1: whose work explores the intersection of grief, love, and transformation.
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Speaker 1: His deeply personal books challenge readers to embrace vulnerability and
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Speaker 1: live with greater authenticity. With the background in psychology and
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Speaker 1: decades of experience guiding others through personal growth, his writing
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Speaker 1: is both raw and revelatory. His previous previous books include
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Speaker 1: The Last Letter, ID Healer in The Connection Playbook, all
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Speaker 1: of which have been recognized with the profound impact on
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Speaker 1: readers worldwide. His new book, out in September, is titled
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Speaker 1: Dying to Live Finding Life's Meaning Through Death spiritual memoir,
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Speaker 1: which traces a journey through trauma, ambiguous loss, and the
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Speaker 1: unraveling of identity. Any before we get going, share with
1:24
Speaker 1: the listeners where you're from originally and where you.
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Speaker 2: Are it's good originally it's the important question. I'm originally
1:30
Speaker 2: from the United States. I left in when I was
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Speaker 2: twenty years old, and I haven't really lived here since.
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Speaker 2: I mean, I've sort of dabbled, but it's been sort
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Speaker 2: of thirty thirty five years away from the US.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, so where are you know?
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Speaker 2: I happened to be in Los Angeles for the book tour,
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Speaker 2: but in general I would be living in Amsterdam or Indonesia.
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Speaker 2: My wife just got a job in Jakarta, so I'll
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Speaker 2: be spending time now in Jakarta as well. Wow.
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Speaker 1: Very interesting. So you have created a very what I
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Speaker 1: would what I consider vibrant, interesting, meaningful space and work
2:16
Speaker 1: and passion. How did this start for you?
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Speaker 2: You know, I live life where I follow my intuition.
2:25
Speaker 2: I just follow my intuition, and I one day I
2:29
Speaker 2: was working totally unhappy and I spent you know, I
2:34
Speaker 2: was in my mid thirties and a mentor came into
2:37
Speaker 2: my life and I was so just impressed that I
2:40
Speaker 2: sold everything I owned, I dropped my job, and I
2:44
Speaker 2: lived in a kind of attic space with no water,
2:46
Speaker 2: no electricity, no toilet, and I just have starting life
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Speaker 2: over again. And I didn't know what that would bring me,
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Speaker 2: but I knew that if I had lived that life
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Speaker 2: I was currently on, I wouldn't have been happy.
3:00
Speaker 1: WHOA slow down, because this is this is it? What
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Speaker 1: were you going through? Let's say you were unhappy? Oh?
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Speaker 1: I was.
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Speaker 2: I got everything I ever wanted, and I realized it
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Speaker 2: was meaningless. That's what happened, you know.
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Speaker 1: Okay, and someone comes into your life. How who what.
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Speaker 2: His name is? His name was Case de Broun de Brown.
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Speaker 2: He's a dutch Man and he was a teacher of
3:30
Speaker 2: call it non dual descent, right, you know, Kris Namuti
3:34
Speaker 2: was this big fanboy and and what he taught me
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Speaker 2: was he taught me that I was an impostor. You know.
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Speaker 2: He was very he was very assertive, He wasn't very loving.
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Speaker 2: He was I think I needed a good kick in
3:46
Speaker 2: the butt because my ego was pretty big at that moment,
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Speaker 2: you know. So he just gave me a good kick
3:51
Speaker 2: in the butt and he said, you know, whatever you
3:54
Speaker 2: think you're doing or whatever you think you know, you know,
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Speaker 2: you're just bluffing and and like, you know, as a
4:00
Speaker 2: happy as I see you to be, Like, if you're
4:02
Speaker 2: not doing anything to change that, then you know, then
4:05
Speaker 2: why are you doing what you're doing now? Like he
4:08
Speaker 2: called my life into question in a very strong people
4:12
Speaker 2: would probably say probably too aggressive, but I was very
4:15
Speaker 2: appreciative of it because I needed someone to push or
4:19
Speaker 2: put a really harsh mirror in my face and say,
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Speaker 2: you know, are you are you living the life you
4:23
Speaker 2: want to be living?
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Speaker 1: And I wasn't say more about that, what was that
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Speaker 1: life that you wanted to be living?
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Speaker 2: So I would say that the majority of my life
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Speaker 2: I lived in fear, Like everything was a.
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Speaker 1: Fear that.
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Speaker 2: So everything was a fear based decision. And I even
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Speaker 2: said that up until that point, at thirty five years old,
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Speaker 2: i'd never made a real decision in my life. And
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Speaker 2: I defined decision and by the so there was always
5:03
Speaker 2: a choice placed in front of me. You can go
5:05
Speaker 2: to college, yes, you can go to these colleges. You
5:07
Speaker 2: can you know afterwards you can think about what you
5:10
Speaker 2: want to do and maybe work in these places. So
5:13
Speaker 2: there was always choices put in front of me. But
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Speaker 2: I had never made a decision, and a decision again
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Speaker 2: in my definition, would have things that are excluded from it,
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Speaker 2: like whatever it's going to be, it's not going to
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Speaker 2: be that. A choice is you can do ten things.
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Speaker 2: A decision is like, well, in my decision, that means
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Speaker 2: I can't do twenty other things. So what I what
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Speaker 2: I faced at that moment was I said no to
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Speaker 2: my current life without even knowing what the next life
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Speaker 2: was going to be. And that was scary and I'd
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Speaker 2: never done that before.
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Speaker 1: No safety net, essentially none.
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Speaker 2: I mean there was money that had been made from
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Speaker 2: the prior life, but there was no security in terms
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Speaker 2: of this is how you're going to make money, this
5:55
Speaker 2: is what you're going to do. It was it was
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Speaker 2: really like, Wow, I just graduated from college again and
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Speaker 2: I don't know what I'm going to do right college
6:04
Speaker 2: meaning having starting from ground zero in terms of what
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Speaker 2: life you know you're going to be building for yourself.
6:11
Speaker 1: So what did you do?
6:14
Speaker 2: I worked? I worked, say, underneath him. So I went
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Speaker 2: from a director of a company, having taken a company public, right,
6:22
Speaker 2: having been in a very prestigious role and having you know,
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Speaker 2: all of the accolades and the things that would make
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Speaker 2: life appear to be very successful. You know, from the exterior,
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Speaker 2: and then I worked for him as the second guy
6:35
Speaker 2: who just followed him around and supported him and doing
6:38
Speaker 2: his work. And for ten years we you know, we
6:41
Speaker 2: made no money. My wife would jokingly say, you're like,
6:45
Speaker 2: you'd like, stop calling yourself a business. You're you're a
6:47
Speaker 2: nonprofit organization. It was so it was ten years of
6:52
Speaker 2: just struggling. No, no, that's not right. I don't want
6:55
Speaker 2: to use that word. It was ten years of having
6:57
Speaker 2: the best time and not knowing what the hell I
7:00
Speaker 2: was doing, but working and you know, finding people that
7:04
Speaker 2: were curious and self discovery and specifically his method, which
7:08
Speaker 2: was very non dual approach, very much when one separates
7:11
Speaker 2: from their emotional state, you know, projects onto themselves, say
7:15
Speaker 2: I am a certain way. He'd be the first person
7:17
Speaker 2: who would say, don't identify anything as an incapacity. You
7:21
Speaker 2: can observe it, but by personalizing it, you actually make
7:26
Speaker 2: it true for yourself. So he was very much into
7:28
Speaker 2: a world of anything was possible for you, and you
7:31
Speaker 2: need to like work through your identity and break it
7:33
Speaker 2: down step by step so that you can finally say,
7:36
Speaker 2: what's underneath all this, what do you really want to be?
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Speaker 2: After you kind of die before you die and realize
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Speaker 2: there's no death, Like who do you want to be then?
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Speaker 2: And yeah, so I spent ten years with that man,
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Speaker 2: which was quite a revelatory period for me.
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Speaker 1: Of course, that's amazing. As you were going through this process,
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Speaker 1: the journey, what were you discuss about yourself? How are
8:01
Speaker 1: you answering those questions? Oh?
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Speaker 2: I remember there were a lot of tears, a lot
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Speaker 2: of tears. I remember feeling that existential anxiety like I'd
8:12
Speaker 2: be homeless, that like some point I wouldn't make enough
8:15
Speaker 2: money to support my life, you know, I remember feeling
8:19
Speaker 2: like that. Of Course, when I was in the role
8:23
Speaker 2: of the director, I was very important and people projected
8:28
Speaker 2: onto me and I got identified. So to be nobody
8:31
Speaker 2: and have nothing in the sense of that made me
8:33
Speaker 2: valuable to others was a real eye opener in terms
8:37
Speaker 2: of like, hey, you know, you're not going to get
8:41
Speaker 2: your validation from the outside, right, You're going to have
8:44
Speaker 2: to find that from within. So that ten years was
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Speaker 2: very much a rediscovery of myself and dealing with I mean,
8:52
Speaker 2: you know things like I had a very tough relationship
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Speaker 2: with my father and yeah, he and I didn't get along.
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Speaker 2: So in the in the discovery process, I of course
9:02
Speaker 2: had to take responsibility from my interactions with him, so
9:05
Speaker 2: I called him and we made peace. We became very close.
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Speaker 2: So those were all things that only happened because because
9:13
Speaker 2: I took more responsibility from my life and my actions.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, the sounds like the the journey of someone who,
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Speaker 1: first of all, I think at you said thirty five
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Speaker 1: when this happened.
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Speaker 2: Yeah young, Yeah, I was lucky.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, that's awesome. But it also is very reminiscent of
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Speaker 1: someone who, like you know, hit quote unquote rock bottom,
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Speaker 1: and they're trying to find themselves again in a sense.
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Speaker 1: So you obviously are this very creative person. How so
9:54
Speaker 1: how did all this emerge from you? I'm looking at
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Speaker 1: your website right now and just remind everyone speaking with
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Speaker 1: Andy Chiliff andychilift dot com, how did what did you
10:07
Speaker 1: do physically? How did things start kicking in for you?
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Speaker 2: So imagine that then the mentor died of a heart attack.
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Speaker 2: This man who I work with for ten years died
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Speaker 2: and I didn't know after his death what I was
10:23
Speaker 2: going to do because I had my prior life. You know,
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Speaker 2: I did well in business and that was great, and
10:29
Speaker 2: then I had my second life, which was like, now
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Speaker 2: I'm second to someone in service to something bigger than myself,
10:35
Speaker 2: which was very fulfilling and rewarding. But now he was gone,
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Speaker 2: and the question was what now? And what happened was
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Speaker 2: I just said, I'm going to write a book. That
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Speaker 2: was it. I said, I don't even know what it's
10:48
Speaker 2: going to be about, but I'm going to write a book.
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Speaker 2: And somehow intuitively I knew that through the writing of
10:53
Speaker 2: that book, it would guide me and it would help
10:56
Speaker 2: me better understand myself and better sort of understand where
10:59
Speaker 2: I want to necessarily have an impact in the world.
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Speaker 2: And and that book was the first call, the last letter,
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Speaker 2: and and yeah, that that.
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Speaker 1: What was to say in that book?
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Speaker 2: And that was the important point, was what did I
11:13
Speaker 2: want to say? It was the reckoning because I told
11:15
Speaker 2: you I had left America thirty years earlier, you know,
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Speaker 2: And and I left because I my mom, when I
11:23
Speaker 2: was eighteen, was killed by a drunk driver, and and
11:27
Speaker 2: I wasn't close to my father, and and basically the
11:30
Speaker 2: tension of the relationship he was, you know, he had
11:33
Speaker 2: he had, you know, his own mental issues. He needed
11:36
Speaker 2: to be medicated because he was bipolar. And all these
11:38
Speaker 2: sort of things, and and and I did. I did
11:42
Speaker 2: what I could to separate myself from that, from that life,
11:47
Speaker 2: which was traveling. So I just left America, not not
11:51
Speaker 2: all that, you know, soon after that, And by doing that,
11:55
Speaker 2: in writing the book, what I realized, well, I ran
11:57
Speaker 2: away from America to escape that pain. But I wrote
12:03
Speaker 2: the book. It was thirty years after the event of
12:05
Speaker 2: my mom's death, and I thought, you know what, what
12:08
Speaker 2: an incredible moment to like go back to America and
12:14
Speaker 2: do something special. So what had happened is in the book.
12:18
Speaker 2: It highlights the story which was quite pivotal, was that
12:21
Speaker 2: I wrote a letter to my mother because I was
12:23
Speaker 2: taking a sociology of death class at the university, and
12:27
Speaker 2: because of that, I wrote her this letter. She received
12:30
Speaker 2: the letter, and then she was killed, you know, by
12:32
Speaker 2: this drunk drug driver just hours later. Oh and and
12:38
Speaker 2: that story never really meant much to me. It happened,
12:41
Speaker 2: you know, a lot of people gave meaning to it,
12:43
Speaker 2: but I'd always said, you know, my mom is gone.
12:45
Speaker 2: I you know, I don't really care. You know that
12:48
Speaker 2: this letter was written. She knew I loved her. But
12:51
Speaker 2: then thirty years later, I thought, wow, I got that moment.
12:54
Speaker 2: I got that opportunity, and so I used the book
12:58
Speaker 2: as the platform to travel across the US for three
13:01
Speaker 2: months and sit with sixty groups and ask them to
13:04
Speaker 2: write letters to love ones as if it would be
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Speaker 2: the last letter that they'd send them. And I did that,
13:09
Speaker 2: you know, you know, and I don't know, twenty some
13:11
Speaker 2: odd states across the US. So it was like a
13:13
Speaker 2: bit of a homecoming to come back to an emotional
13:18
Speaker 2: moment in my life that I ran away from for
13:20
Speaker 2: thirty years.
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Speaker 1: And now you created How did you create the groups?
13:26
Speaker 1: You know?
13:26
Speaker 2: It was so funny. I just took a shower. I
13:29
Speaker 2: was taking the shower, typical story. And I left the
13:31
Speaker 2: shower and I said to my wife, I said, Babe,
13:34
Speaker 2: I'm doing this. I'm going to do I'm going to
13:36
Speaker 2: do ninety days. I'm gonna get sixty. And then all
13:39
Speaker 2: I did was I like, I saw, you know, my
13:43
Speaker 2: mom was the oldest of twelve kids. So I thought, okay,
13:47
Speaker 2: there's at least some locations in there. I've had friends
13:50
Speaker 2: across America, so there was something in there. There were
13:53
Speaker 2: going to be bookstores, there were going to be churches,
13:56
Speaker 2: there were going to be old folks homes. So I didn't.
14:00
Speaker 2: I just said I will do it anywhere, anytime, and
14:04
Speaker 2: through that I just manifested sixty within I don't know,
14:07
Speaker 2: it would have been three weeks, maybe not that long,
14:10
Speaker 2: you know. And then there were some gaps. There were
14:12
Speaker 2: some parts of America's like, oh, there's not a lot
14:14
Speaker 2: between this and this, so you know, I would use
14:17
Speaker 2: that as a chance to maybe get further along on
14:20
Speaker 2: my trip. But yeah, it was. It was just a
14:22
Speaker 2: dedication to like, like, let this teach and inform me about,
14:28
Speaker 2: you know, what's possible.
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Speaker 1: I didn't.
14:29
Speaker 2: I didn't live with how am I going to do this?
14:31
Speaker 2: I just stated it's going to happen. I'm only going
14:34
Speaker 2: to work out the details as I go along, and
14:37
Speaker 2: that's how That's how it worked out.
14:39
Speaker 1: Sounds amazing, Yeah, it was sounds amazing.
14:42
Speaker 2: And exhausting emotionally and physically. I don't know if that's
14:46
Speaker 2: something I would ever No, it's not something i'd ever
14:48
Speaker 2: do again. It was just too much, just too much.
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Speaker 1: What happened after that, well, what happened.
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Speaker 2: After that again, if we follow this whole thread of
14:59
Speaker 2: just following my intuition when I took the trip, I
15:03
Speaker 2: narrated it into into recorder because there was such so
15:07
Speaker 2: many fascinating things happening. And then that book became the
15:11
Speaker 2: next book, which was The Wounded Healer, which was all
15:13
Speaker 2: about that journey, and it was about a practice that
15:16
Speaker 2: I use a lot in my in my work, which
15:19
Speaker 2: is naming the thing that's hardest for one to make
15:24
Speaker 2: peace with them themselves, saying that loud and saying and
15:27
Speaker 2: it's effing great. So, you know, I was never loved
15:31
Speaker 2: by my father in a way that I would have
15:33
Speaker 2: wanted to have been loved. And it's effing great and
15:36
Speaker 2: just and just or you know, I lost the one
15:38
Speaker 2: woman in my life that gave my life meaning when
15:41
Speaker 2: I was eighteen. And it's effing great, and it's.
15:45
Speaker 1: It's having great because why because it's effing great.
15:49
Speaker 2: It's effing great because my mind is stuck in the
15:53
Speaker 2: story of victimization, of how horrible it is, and and
15:59
Speaker 2: when I allow myself to sit with the the undercurrent
16:04
Speaker 2: underneath all that pain, that it's actually okay. Actually I'm
16:09
Speaker 2: If my mom hadn't died, I wouldn't in any way
16:12
Speaker 2: become the individual I would have become. You know, I
16:15
Speaker 2: know that on a very very deep level. So in
16:18
Speaker 2: that sense, I can sit with the and yeah, it
16:21
Speaker 2: is beautiful when it happened, right, I'm not trying to
16:25
Speaker 2: create a narrative that it's great. I'm trying to relax
16:28
Speaker 2: my limbic system so that I can be more present
16:30
Speaker 2: to what is. So it's not a tool. It's not
16:34
Speaker 2: like a way in which I would say, let me
16:37
Speaker 2: say this enough times and maybe I'll believe it. It's
16:40
Speaker 2: a true like underneath this, I can feel it's great,
16:43
Speaker 2: Like I can honestly feel that on a very loving
16:46
Speaker 2: where the world makes sense, it's great.
16:50
Speaker 1: And because the obverse, the opposite would be to sit, well,
16:56
Speaker 1: it sucks. Your mother died, my father died, it sucks. Yeah,
17:00
Speaker 1: what's wrong with that?
17:01
Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely nothing. Actually that's also because we're talking about
17:05
Speaker 2: we're talking about the polarity of it, right, So it's
17:08
Speaker 2: not it's not the call it like and what I
17:11
Speaker 2: call American positivism, like let's make everything positive. That would
17:15
Speaker 2: be it would not be what we're talking about here.
17:18
Speaker 2: What we're saying is we're making peace with all of
17:21
Speaker 2: those aspects that are rumbling around in the back, that
17:24
Speaker 2: are influencing us all the time. So that we can
17:27
Speaker 2: just be present again, not not to override it, but
17:33
Speaker 2: to settle it, so that all we're back is to
17:36
Speaker 2: oh that that voice, that emotion, that thing is so settled.
17:39
Speaker 2: I can just show up with guy and just be
17:42
Speaker 2: so present to him that I'm not holding back all
17:45
Speaker 2: those feelings that are now showing up in contorted ways
17:49
Speaker 2: now through our interaction.
17:51
Speaker 1: Yeah, do you what was it about this mentor? Obviously
17:58
Speaker 1: there was something about him that it felt like your
18:04
Speaker 1: attraction to him in a sense was magnetic.
18:08
Speaker 2: Yeah, he was a need, Yeah it was.
18:14
Speaker 1: What was that? I mean, were you even able to
18:16
Speaker 1: articulate that at that point?
18:20
Speaker 2: You know, there's something that like, you know, I was
18:24
Speaker 2: very I wasn't am very sensitive. So if I feel
18:29
Speaker 2: that someone is not that their words aren't corresponding with
18:32
Speaker 2: their actions, then that'll be enough for me to say,
18:35
Speaker 2: I'm separating myself from this person, Right, so somebody that's
18:39
Speaker 2: overly selling themselves or like I'm just I'm allergic to it.
18:43
Speaker 2: I feel on a visceral level. So when I'm with
18:47
Speaker 2: somebody and their words match up with their actions, which
18:50
Speaker 2: his did you know, and he was full of flaws,
18:54
Speaker 2: I'm not like we're not elevating him. We're just saying
18:57
Speaker 2: in the way in which he decided to live, he
19:00
Speaker 2: live from integrity in that way, and that was something
19:03
Speaker 2: that I missed, living in service to something bigger than yourself.
19:07
Speaker 2: I didn't have without religion, right orund it, without it
19:11
Speaker 2: being specific to something. He just chose a way to live,
19:15
Speaker 2: and I said, Wow, there's something in that that I
19:18
Speaker 2: really feel is bigger than me. I don't even quite
19:21
Speaker 2: understand it completely, but what I see is in it
19:23
Speaker 2: there's something that's magical, and I'd love to follow that
19:27
Speaker 2: path to see where it takes me.
19:30
Speaker 1: How would you describe the work you're doing now, let's
19:34
Speaker 1: talk about first of all, before you answer that, yeah,
19:38
Speaker 1: you put together your site. Was the what was the
19:42
Speaker 1: impetus for that? What did you want to do? What
19:44
Speaker 1: was the purpose? You know?
19:46
Speaker 2: It was interesting because it's funny. I often follow backwards.
19:49
Speaker 2: You know, people want to usually build their site and
19:51
Speaker 2: then like promote themselves. I kind of was sitting there, like,
19:55
Speaker 2: I'm making things. I should have a site that's reflective
19:58
Speaker 2: of who I am. So the site is actually quite fun.
20:01
Speaker 2: As you've probably seen, it's a reflection of who I am.
20:05
Speaker 2: It's very vulnerable. It tells my story, and I think
20:09
Speaker 2: what I've always wanted in the world and what I
20:12
Speaker 2: see missing is for the world to see that people
20:16
Speaker 2: are really just wonderful at whatever manifestation they come in,
20:20
Speaker 2: They're just wonderful. Like the fact that we have to
20:23
Speaker 2: create a concept for ourselves, we have to try to
20:25
Speaker 2: sell ourselves in some weird way to make ourselves understandable
20:29
Speaker 2: to others, Like I've really done my best in life
20:32
Speaker 2: to say no, I'm a flawed human being that just
20:36
Speaker 2: has enough guts to write about their insecurity so other
20:39
Speaker 2: people can say, wow, I have that same insecurity and
20:42
Speaker 2: if anything I would that's my aspiration in life is
20:45
Speaker 2: that is that if you can see yourself more clearly
20:49
Speaker 2: through my insecurities and my ability to express them, that's
20:53
Speaker 2: a I mean, I could cry now sharing that. That's
20:55
Speaker 2: a beautiful life. And then the idea that I know
20:59
Speaker 2: something and you don't, well, you know something, I don't.
21:01
Speaker 2: Everyone knows something, and yet we have to in some
21:06
Speaker 2: way put on some mask of superiority, and that actually
21:10
Speaker 2: weirdly undermines other people because then they think that they
21:12
Speaker 2: don't get it yet, or that they need to understand
21:14
Speaker 2: more that they haven't gotten there, and I'm doing my
21:18
Speaker 2: best in life to say no, you got it, and
21:20
Speaker 2: you're insecure as hell as we all are. So let's
21:24
Speaker 2: just stay with that for a while. Let's just cry
21:26
Speaker 2: a little bit. Let's like allow yourself to feel that
21:28
Speaker 2: the absurdity of everything you judge yourself for, and then
21:33
Speaker 2: at the back end of it, you'll just see your
21:35
Speaker 2: freer to make better decisions. You know, you won't come
21:38
Speaker 2: from fear or anxiety or self sabotage or blame, and
21:42
Speaker 2: you know, it's it's just all of that. And I'm
21:46
Speaker 2: hoping to be more and more an example of that
21:49
Speaker 2: without needing to come from an authority of it, without
21:52
Speaker 2: needing to say here are the three steps and this
21:54
Speaker 2: is what you got to do. You know, I can
21:56
Speaker 2: say this is what I've done, but it's really hard
21:59
Speaker 2: for people people to build up their own uh say,
22:03
Speaker 2: their own energy, to create their own credibility, credibility, their
22:07
Speaker 2: own like agency, to take their agency back and say no,
22:10
Speaker 2: I'm the master of my own life and and and
22:14
Speaker 2: I'm going to fail miserably at it. And that's fine,
22:17
Speaker 2: you know that that that's really no.
22:19
Speaker 1: Why do you think it's hard for people to do that,
22:21
Speaker 1: because I agree it is. It's very hard.
22:23
Speaker 2: I mean, I think it's hard because societally, I mean
22:26
Speaker 2: if if if I even look at how people promote
22:31
Speaker 2: themselves to others, like are you feeling this? Are you
22:34
Speaker 2: feeling that? Are you?
22:35
Speaker 1: You know?
22:36
Speaker 2: What we do the scarcity or the the lacking of
22:39
Speaker 2: what one might feel, Well, I have a solution for you.
22:42
Speaker 2: So in some ways, what we're doing is we're also
22:45
Speaker 2: sometimes taking the agency away from them because if I
22:48
Speaker 2: tell you the quest answer is within you, you can
22:51
Speaker 2: sit with that and then we can like go to
22:53
Speaker 2: the deepest depths of where you feel incapable. Let those
22:57
Speaker 2: get released, and then who knows who you'll be afterwards.
22:59
Speaker 2: But if I tell you, I can fix those, and
23:01
Speaker 2: then I can give you a model that's very attractive.
23:04
Speaker 2: But what what one doesn't see this this subtlety with
23:06
Speaker 2: which they give away their agency to another person. And
23:09
Speaker 2: it's not always bad. It's you know, I don't want
23:11
Speaker 2: to say it's categorically I had to do it, of
23:13
Speaker 2: course on my journey and others. You know, you've got
23:15
Speaker 2: to move step by step to you can look through
23:18
Speaker 2: your own matrix and say oh my god, this is absurd.
23:21
Speaker 2: But but you know it's it's easy to stand at
23:23
Speaker 2: the end of a journey and look back and say, oh,
23:25
Speaker 2: this is this. You know this isn't required, but we
23:28
Speaker 2: all have our journeys. But I would love it if
23:31
Speaker 2: we sped up that moment where someone says, wow, you
23:34
Speaker 2: already know it all. You just need to sit quietly
23:36
Speaker 2: with yourself a little bit longer and see the answers
23:40
Speaker 2: that start to emerge when you're not when you're not
23:42
Speaker 2: holding yourself back.
23:45
Speaker 1: Yeah, I love this. It's very exciting to me. It's
23:49
Speaker 1: and I think this is one of the reasons why
23:51
Speaker 1: I when I learned of what you were doing, I
23:54
Speaker 1: was immediately like, yes, I love to love to bring
23:59
Speaker 1: this guy on and talk to him and listen to him.
24:02
Speaker 1: It's in that quality of allowing oneself to reveal themselves
24:09
Speaker 1: or be themselves I think is oftentimes missing within the
24:13
Speaker 1: therapeutic context, of course, because it's especially when you're talking
24:17
Speaker 1: about people who've been traumatized. If they're able to see
24:24
Speaker 1: or witness and authenticity, it maybe allows themselves to begin
24:28
Speaker 1: that trust with it themselves. Let's talk about your new book.
24:33
Speaker 1: How did this come.
24:33
Speaker 2: About Well, again, if there's a subject I'm not comfortable with,
24:40
Speaker 2: I'm in right. If there's something that doesn't feel if
24:43
Speaker 2: there's questions that I want to ask, then that's enough
24:46
Speaker 2: for me to take that journey. And so I just said,
24:51
Speaker 2: you know, I've never been particularly comfortable with death. I've
24:55
Speaker 2: never felt like this is an area in my life
24:57
Speaker 2: where it was like, oh, I feel like I've made
25:00
Speaker 2: peace with that aspect, you know. And so what I
25:03
Speaker 2: thought was, let me let me look through the lens
25:06
Speaker 2: of every single thing I've experienced with death from childhood
25:10
Speaker 2: to adulthood and see the memoir aspect of it. There's
25:15
Speaker 2: always been stories of which I could almost see thirty
25:19
Speaker 2: chapters in my head before I started writing, And I thought,
25:23
Speaker 2: how do I share that in a way that also
25:25
Speaker 2: shares the journey of it from you know, the night
25:28
Speaker 2: terrors when exit, you know, this idea of non existence,
25:33
Speaker 2: how that was addressed in the early in the early
25:36
Speaker 2: years of my life too into the later years where
25:39
Speaker 2: it was more befriended. And said, wow, if where do
25:43
Speaker 2: I feel at more peace with that transition and why?
25:47
Speaker 2: And so how do I move through that in a
25:49
Speaker 2: way that's quite beautiful where other people would identify with
25:53
Speaker 2: the experiences I was having. And so that was the
25:56
Speaker 2: that was the reason for the book.
25:58
Speaker 1: So how did you break the book down?
26:01
Speaker 2: Break it down in the sense of chapter structure.
26:05
Speaker 1: Structurally, I guess.
26:06
Speaker 2: I write books always the same as I don't. I
26:11
Speaker 2: always write from flow. So what I'll do is I'll say, oh,
26:14
Speaker 2: here are the thirty chapters, and then I'll put those
26:17
Speaker 2: thirty chapters out and then and I'll just pick one
26:20
Speaker 2: of the chapters to write to when it feels like that,
26:23
Speaker 2: you know, there's a little bit of a vibration, like
26:25
Speaker 2: that's the chapter that I want to write to now.
26:28
Speaker 2: And then I wrote that, and I have like a
26:30
Speaker 2: general rule like try to get to seventy thousand words
26:34
Speaker 2: that that's kind of it. It sounds dumb, maybe arbitrary,
26:38
Speaker 2: but I know that the book is probably going to
26:40
Speaker 2: end up at about fifty five thousand, and I know
26:42
Speaker 2: we're going to edit out a lot of it, so
26:44
Speaker 2: let's just get to let's get to seventy thousand words
26:47
Speaker 2: and let's see and of course not to fill words,
26:50
Speaker 2: but meaningful content as far as that's possible. And on
26:55
Speaker 2: this one, actually I didn't get to as many words
26:57
Speaker 2: as I had on my prior books. Is what I
27:00
Speaker 2: noticed through the writing was that the text was for
27:05
Speaker 2: me far more. I wanted it to be a meditation
27:09
Speaker 2: rather than a explanation, right. I wanted someone to read
27:15
Speaker 2: it and not need to think all that much. And
27:18
Speaker 2: what happened when I had when i'd written it the
27:21
Speaker 2: first call it two drafts, I was reading it and
27:24
Speaker 2: I was thinking and like, oh, this is horrible. I'm
27:28
Speaker 2: thinking about my own book. I've written these words and
27:30
Speaker 2: I'm thinking. So I had to go back through again
27:34
Speaker 2: so that it felt far more like I was absorbing
27:37
Speaker 2: somebody else's being. And then through that absorption, I get
27:41
Speaker 2: a sense of what it would feel like to be
27:43
Speaker 2: in that type of space. And that was not an
27:46
Speaker 2: easy task, but that was what That was what I
27:48
Speaker 2: gave myself as a you know, an outcome.
27:51
Speaker 1: How how if it all did the process alter or
27:56
Speaker 1: shift your perspective on that?
28:00
Speaker 2: You know? The funny thing was was I've given the
28:05
Speaker 2: book to people that are quite prestigious, right, people who
28:09
Speaker 2: are well established, and and and the one thing they said,
28:13
Speaker 2: and I'll get back to your question through their answers,
28:16
Speaker 2: is they read the book which I didn't think they would.
28:18
Speaker 2: I thought, you don't need to read this book, are
28:21
Speaker 2: you kidding me? You've done the work, You've established yourself.
28:25
Speaker 2: And the feedback I got was that it helped me
28:28
Speaker 2: clarify the thoughts I was already having. It wasn't that
28:31
Speaker 2: anything you said was revolutionary to what I was already doing,
28:35
Speaker 2: but the way you articulated it was in a way
28:38
Speaker 2: that I could very much empathize with and give words
28:41
Speaker 2: to that maybe weren't as clear to me before. And
28:45
Speaker 2: what I would say is that's what it did for me.
28:49
Speaker 2: So you know, again, as I said, I'm not trying
28:52
Speaker 2: to write in a way which is like you've never
28:55
Speaker 2: seen this before, you've never heard this before. The idea is,
28:59
Speaker 2: can I articulated in a way where you say, wow,
29:01
Speaker 2: I know that experience and and wow, he's articulated in
29:05
Speaker 2: a way which may be a little bit different than
29:08
Speaker 2: how I'd say it, but it actually adds to my
29:11
Speaker 2: understanding of what that feels like. And that's what that's
29:14
Speaker 2: what was special about it.
29:15
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah, I love that. And it's similar to
29:22
Speaker 1: people who are authentic. I think oftentimes sometimes it's not
29:30
Speaker 1: that they're saying or being authentic in a different way
29:35
Speaker 1: or unique, but it's their way. Yeah, and that unique
29:40
Speaker 1: quality something about it, you know, gets us, attracts us,
29:48
Speaker 1: inspires us. I think this is this discussion is very
29:54
Speaker 1: timely given the culture here in America in which we
29:58
Speaker 1: find ourselves, which is completely bonkers. It seems to be
30:06
Speaker 1: run by this almost force of inauthentic inauthenticity. Yeah, God forbid,
30:14
Speaker 1: we are authentic. I don't have time for that. I
30:17
Speaker 1: need to do X, Y and Z. What do you
30:19
Speaker 1: mean work backwards for for my website. I can't do that.
30:24
Speaker 1: I've got to sell something. Yeah, yeah, what do you
30:28
Speaker 1: say to that?
30:29
Speaker 2: Well, you know, it's this is a hard one because again,
30:34
Speaker 2: as I mentioned before, it's really easy to like stand
30:38
Speaker 2: on the shoulders of all the people before you to
30:41
Speaker 2: get to a place and say, hey, just be your
30:43
Speaker 2: authentic self. You know there. You know, people have to
30:46
Speaker 2: pay bills, you know, So I'm almost like, whatever you do,
30:52
Speaker 2: be present to what you're doing. And if you need
30:56
Speaker 2: to make money along the way, then that's great, there's
30:59
Speaker 2: no nothing wrong with that, But don't sacrifice your being
31:03
Speaker 2: to make that money. If it comes at a cost
31:06
Speaker 2: that's too great, and you know, in your twenties you're
31:09
Speaker 2: going to do miserable stuff, self sacrifice, just because you're
31:13
Speaker 2: trying to prove and get an identity. When you move
31:15
Speaker 2: to thirty and forty, you're a bit like, hey, I'm
31:17
Speaker 2: gonna be a bit more selective because I now know
31:19
Speaker 2: the cost of that. You know, it's it's at the
31:22
Speaker 2: cost of my emotional well being. So so yeah, so
31:27
Speaker 2: now after ten years of living like like you know,
31:32
Speaker 2: I said, my wife is like a nonprofit organization. You know,
31:36
Speaker 2: I started writing the books and I after my mentor died,
31:39
Speaker 2: you know, and I took that journey basically I just
31:42
Speaker 2: mentor leaders. I mentor you know, you know, well known
31:46
Speaker 2: people actually, you know, it's quite a funny life I live.
31:49
Speaker 2: You know, you know, musicians from around the world or
31:53
Speaker 2: or you know, high net worth individuals. You know, they'll
31:56
Speaker 2: they'll just be now looking for love and support. And
32:01
Speaker 2: that's kind of it, you know, And just a clear
32:04
Speaker 2: voice doesn't have an agenda. It's just as it's just
32:08
Speaker 2: looking at the facts as they are, understanding you as
32:11
Speaker 2: you are, and just being a good friend. And that's
32:15
Speaker 2: my job. That's it.
32:17
Speaker 1: How would you encourage someone to as as I read
32:21
Speaker 1: in your in your bio, embrace vulnerability and live with
32:26
Speaker 1: greater authenticity.
32:30
Speaker 2: You know, that's a that's like one of the harder
32:33
Speaker 2: questions I'd be asked, because of course it's everyone's journey,
32:37
Speaker 2: you know. I had I had a book launch of
32:40
Speaker 2: the SoftBook launch to say, three maybe three or four
32:44
Speaker 2: days ago in Amsterdam, and and I didn't want to
32:48
Speaker 2: do it. I just didn't want to. I wasn't I
32:50
Speaker 2: wasn't in an emotional place for it. I was like,
32:52
Speaker 2: I was very raw, was not feeling well, and I
32:55
Speaker 2: had twenty five people and I just spent half the
32:58
Speaker 2: time just crying. So I was in front of these
33:00
Speaker 2: twenty five people that came and I just cried. You know.
33:02
Speaker 2: It was just like every sentence that came out was
33:05
Speaker 2: another thing that triggered me, and then I just cry.
33:08
Speaker 2: And I was sitting there kind of just like I
33:12
Speaker 2: made the decision not to show up as anyone other
33:15
Speaker 2: than who I am in any given moment. So I
33:18
Speaker 2: don't know who I am going to be then, but
33:19
Speaker 2: I know whoever that person is, that's a showing up.
33:22
Speaker 2: So there is a little bit of you know, discomfort
33:25
Speaker 2: in that because as much as much as I would think, Wow,
33:28
Speaker 2: I'm I'm really ready to be present, Like it's like wow,
33:31
Speaker 2: if you're really raw and it's not a good time,
33:34
Speaker 2: I'm not. I don't want to put on a brave face.
33:37
Speaker 2: And I made that decision, and it was not an
33:41
Speaker 2: easy decision to have made. You know, I'd almost say
33:44
Speaker 2: with that when I told you when I did that
33:46
Speaker 2: to or through America, when I did the sixty sessions.
33:49
Speaker 2: The one thing that I said, which was a very
33:51
Speaker 2: interesting thing, was that I had it been thirty years
33:54
Speaker 2: that my mom had died, and every time